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First POST: Regulation

Wednesday, February 20 2013

Exclusively for Personal Democracy Plus subscribers: The guns of Silicon Valley; the White House's new tack on Internet extremism; and more in today's round-up of news about technology in politics from around the web.

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First POST: Regulation

Check out Sarah Lai Stirland's must-read look at the Silicon Valley libertarians who are bucking Northern California's reputation for progressive causes and opposing a ban on assault weapons:

Gene Hoffman, an affable Silicon Valley entrepreneur, speaks rapidly and logically, and his hands whiz expertly around the weapon as he attaches the lower receiver into the rest of his LCW-15, a type of AR-15 rifle. At 38, he is the CEO of Vindicia, a digital subscription payments processing firm. But he's also chairman of the non-profit Calguns Foundation, which is part of a national network of gun-rights activists that are defending Second Amendment rights in court and fighting legislative battles in statehouses.

"It's weird for me to hear about technologists in the wake of Sandy Hook saying that we should ban guns -- gun control is simply technology control," Hoffman says.

As a starting point to prevent online radicalization to violence in the homeland, the Federal Government initially will focus on raising awareness about the threat and providing communities with practical information and tools for staying safe online. In this process, we will work closely with the technology industry to consider policies, technologies, and tools that can help counter violent extremism online. Companies already have developed voluntary measures to promote Internet safety ─ such as fraud warnings, identity protection, and Internet safety tips ─ and we will collaborate with industry to explore how we might counter online violent extremism without interfering with lawful Internet use or the privacy and civil liberties of individual users.

Around the web

With friends like these:The secret's out about the nasty rumor that prospective Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel spoke at an event hosted by a group called "Friends of Hamas." The group doesn't exist. A New York Daily News reporter, Dan Friedman, came up with the name as part of a hypothetical question posed to a source who, Friedman surmises, then planted the name in the ear of Breitbart.com's Ben Shapiro.

Chicago's "black site"; The New York Times reports "little guys" like Tumblr and Reddit have won the fight for net neutrality but fails to mention Free Press or Demand Progress; Hillary Clinton fan products on Etsy to inspire campaign slogans?; and much, much more. GO